It has been over two years since Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee inaugurated the wi-fi service along Park Street in Kolkata on February 5, 2015, announcing that the entire city of Kolkata would have wi-fi internet facility by the end of April that year. However, her promise of making Kolkata the country’s first wi-fi city is yet to materialise. Sources at Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) which has rolled out the service said that so far, not even half of the city had been covered.

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“We have no idea why a deadline of April-end 2015 was announced by the CM. It was physically impossible to achieve this. It has been over two years now, but we have not yet been able to complete the service in even half the city,” said a senior official of RJIL.

It was found that other than Park Street, which has been enjoying the free internet service, the facility has been extended to parts of Gariahat and Golpark in south Kolkata, Dargha Road, Esplanade area in Central Kolkata, areas of New Town, the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport and some pockets of north Kolkata. However, at the airport and New Town, the facility is available only for 30 minutes against every phone number.

In her speech on the inaugural day, the CM had said that RJIL had been working silently, laying cables in almost 2000 km, which was 90% of the work and with another 250-300 km to be done in the next two months, the entire city would have free wi-fi facility. Sources in the company, however, said that in over 50% of the areas, the cables have not even been laid, which was one of the pre-requisites of rolling out the service. “It will easily pass April 30 deadline this year as well,” the official said and added that though the CM had said that the service would be available for free, this would be temporary. “As soon as the city is ready with the required infrastructure, the company will start charging consumers according to various plans”.

DNA asked Kolkata Municipal Corporation mayor Sovan Chatterjee, who was also present at the inauguration, about the delay. “I don’t know anything. Don’t ask me. Talk to the Reliance people,” he told DNA.

Repeated mails, phone calls and messages failed to get any official response from the RIL officials concerned.